The Writer’s Journal

The writer’s journal is not a diary, though there will be personal and emotional content in it. It’s not an academic journal either, though you will be thinking about things through your writing. The difference between all of these journal forms is in the purpose. The purpose of a diary is to express your feelings and to come to some sense of discovery as to who you are as a person. The purpose of an academic journal is to express your thoughts, and to come to some sense of what you think about the world and what you’re reading. The purpose of the writer’s journal is to experiment with your writing, and to come to some sense of what and how you write, what and how you might like to write, and how you want your writing to develop.

There are three main components to success for your writers journal:

1)    completion.

Writing is discipline. Make no mistake about it. Like all skills- athletic, artistic, technical- it requires practice. Your ability to write is a muscle. The best writers’ muscles are ripped! Buns of steel writing, that’s what we’re after! sweat, sweat, sweat.
2)    experimentation/innovation/initiative.

You may have heard the maxim- “write what you know.” We’ll be doing that. But one of the muscles we need to develop for your writing is your creative and imaginative faculty. And this comes from writing what you don’t know. And writing how you don’t know. Risks will be richly rewarded, not only with marks, but with delight, pleasure and increased skill. Initiative  will be demonstrated when you start to write from  your own impulses, not just waiting for me to tell you what to write. When I see evidence that you’re actively exploring the possibilities of what you can do as a writer, then I’ll know that you are one.
3)    editing/revision.

You’re not satisfied with the first draft. You revise, not just to make it neater (I honestly couldn’t give a flying freak about neatness, as is evidenced by my own hand-writing, and my tears in grade 2), but to see how the writing changes when you do stuff to it. You might not even revise in order to make it “better.” Especially at this stage, when you’re still developing your sense of what good writing is going to be. Revise to make it different. Write it from a different point of view. Write it using a different tense. Remove all the adjectives. Change the order. Change the setting. Change the gender. Remove all references to vision and replace them with smell… etc, etc, etc.

Journal Evaluation: out of 20

completion of all assigned writing (minus one piece   )

• absolutely nothing missing or incomplete    10 marks
• some pieces incomplete                                6-8 marks
• many pieces missing or incomplete          0-5 marks

evidence of experimentation and initiating new work

• at least 2 pieces of your own initiative in any style, andor experimenting with any of the devices we’ve studied, or new ideas in your own or an assigned piece                                           3.5 -5 marks
• 1 piece as described                                                             2 marks
• no evidence of experimentation of new work or independent work    0 marks

revision

• two or more pieces of your choice have been wholly or partially revised     3.5 – 5 marks
• one pieces has been revised           3 marks
• no revision or reworking of any pieces     0 marks